D. .... .. P. Steel, F. C. B. A. Jesus Coll. Oxford.. Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford... Thorp, R. B. A. Titley, P. B. A. Tuckey, C. B. A. Wadham Coll. Oxford .... ..... ... P. .. D... Oxford, 21 May Ely, 21 May Oxford, 21 May Ely, 21 May Norwich, 18 June Bath&Wells, 16June Ely, 21 May Oxford, 21 May Oxford, 21 May Norwich, 18 June Gloucester, 18 June Oxford, 16 June Norwich, 18 June Oxford, 21 May Gloucester, 18 June Bristol, 14 May Peterboro', 21 May Norwich, 18 June Oxford, 21 May Ely, 21 May Norwich, 18 June Ely, 21 May Norwich, 18 June Peterboro', 21 May Tuckfield, C. H. B. A. All Souls Coll. Oxford St. John's Coll. Camb. Woolnough, E. M. A. Christ Coll. Camb. Wright, R. B. A. Trinity Coll. Camb. Wright, R. J. W. Trinity Coll. Oxford PREFERMENTS. Abrahall, J. C. H. M. A. Scholar of Wad ham College, to be Master of the Free Grammar School, Bruton. Bayley, W. F. M. A. to be Prebendary of Canterbury, vice the Rev. Dr. Sumner, promoted to the See of Llandaff. Dashwood, A. Fellow Commoner of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, to the Rectory of Thornage, with Brinton annexed, Norfolk. Hoare, E. H. to the Rectory of Isham Hornbuckle, T. W. B. D. President of St. John's College, to the Rectory of Staplehurst, Kent. Patrons, the Master and Fellows of St. John's College. Johnson, W. M. A. of Brascnose College, to the Vicarage of Morthram, in Longdendale, Cheshire, vacant by the death of the Rev. James Turner, M. A. formerly of the same college. Lyte, H. F. B. A. to the New District Church in the Parish of Lower Brixham, Devon. Marsh, M. B. D. of Christ Church, and Chancellor of the Diocese of Sarum, to be Canon Residentiary of that Cathedral, void by the death of the Rev. Charles Ekins. Master, R. M. of Balliol College, to the Curacy of Burnley, Lancashire. Peacock, G. M. A. F. R. S. Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, to the Vicarage of Wylmeswold, Leicestershire, vacant by the cession of the Rev. Professor Clark. Patrons, Master and Fellows of Trinity College. Powys, C. L. B. D. Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to the Rec tory of Pilton, Northamptonshire. Patron, the Bishop of Peterborough. Rees, D. Curate of Hawkesbury, Gloucestershire, to be Master of the Free Grammar School, Wick war. Reynolds, C. B. A. to the Rectory of Horningtoft, Norfolk. Patron, F. R. Reynolds, Esq. of Yarmouth. Rodd, E. D. D. of Exeter College, to a Vince, S. B. Vice Provost and Tutor of vacant by the death of the Rev. S. White. Whitehead, W. B. M. A. Vicar of Chard, to the Vicarage of Timberscombe, Somerset. Patron, the Rev. Prebendary Vanbrugh. Williams, W. M. A. of All Souls College, to the Perpetual Curacies of Leafield and Ascot, sub Wychewood, Oxon. Patron, the Rev. Robert Phillimore. CLERGYMEN MARRIED. Blandy, F. J. M. A. Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, to Mary, daughter of the late T. Pote, Esq. of Eton, Bucks. Cleaver, H. M. A. Student of Christ Church, and of Hawkhurst, Kent, to Caroline Charlotte Wilhelmina, daughter of the Right Hon. Lady Louisa De Spaer. Girdlestone, Charles, M. A. Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, to Anne Maria, only daughter of Baker Morrell, Esq. of Oxford. Williams, J. B. D. Fellow of Exeter College, and Vicar of Probus in Cornwall, to Anne, danghter of the late Sir W. E. Taunton, of Grand Pont near Oxford. CLERGYMEN DECEASED. Legge, G. A. late Student of Christ Church, and Vicar of Bray. Lillington, R. Vicar of Hampton in Arden. Palmer, E. 40 years Perpetual Curate of Mosely, & Vicar of Stogursey, Somerset. Short, W. D.D. formerly Student of Christ Church, Archdeacon of Cornwall, Prebendary of Westminster and Exeter, and Preceptor of the late Princess Charlotte. Wylde, S. T. Rector of Ubley, Perpetual Curate of Burrington, and Chaplain to Lord Viscount Melville. Yeomans, J. L. M. A. formerly Fellow of Worcester College, Vicar of the Parishes of Bishop's Tawton and Braunton in the north of Devon. LIST OF NEW The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries. Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian. By John, Bishop of Bristol. In One large Volume, 8vo. 12s. 6d. Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacræ, being a critical Digest and synoptical arrangement of the most important Annotations, exegetical, philological, and theclogical, on the New Testament. By the Rev. S. T. Bloomfield, M. A. Part I. in Three large Volumes, 8vo. (containing the Four Gospels) will be ready in about Six Months. The Protestant Beadsman; or, a Series of Biographical Notices and Hymns, commemorating the Saints and Martyrs, whose Holidays are kept by the Church of England; to which is appended, a brief Review of the Scriptural and Traditionary Accounts of the Holy Angels. 12mo. 68. PUBLICATIONS.. The Turkish New Testament incapable of Defence, and the true Principles of Biblical Translation vindicated: in Answer to Professor Lee's "Remarks on Dr. Henderson's Appeal to the Bible Society, on the subject of the Turkish Version of the New Testament printed at Paris in 1819." By the Author of the Appeal. Svo. 8s. 6d. The Book of Churches and Sects; or the Opinions of all Denominations of Christians differing from the Church of England traced to their Source, by an Exposition of the various Translations and Interpretations of the Sacred Writings. To which is added, a brief Refutation of Unitarianism, and an Arrangement of Texts in support of the Tenets of the Church of England. Charles Boone, B. A. lume, 8vo. 14s. By the Rev. T. In One large Vo CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. AUGUST, 1826. SERMON, PREACHED AUGUST 5, 1825, ON THE CONSECRATION OF THE CHURCH OF SECROLE, NEAR BENARES, BY REGINALD, LORD BISHOP of Calcutta. THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD. GEN. XXVIII. 16, 17. "And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this the gate of heaven.” THIS was the natural and touching exclamation of the patriarch Jacob, when, in his lonely and perilous journey from Canaan to the land of the Chaldees, the God of his fathers appeared to him in a dream to confirm him in his faith and service, and to encourage him in his wanderings with the assurance of an unseen and almighty protector. At that time, an outcast, in some degree, from the tents of his father Isaac, and a fugitive from the anger of a justly offended brother; a forlorn and needy wanderer, he had laid him to sleep on the sands of the wilderness, his head supported on a pillow of stone, and his staff and scrip his only riches. But in his dream he saw heaven opened, and "behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and, behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that of which I have spoken to thee. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this the gate of heaven!" In this memorable history are many circumstances which might afford us useful lessons, and any one of which would be a sufficient and copious subject for our morning's meditation. The first and most striking, perhaps, is the strange and awful difference which frequently VOL. VIII. NO. VIII. 3 M is found between the manners in which the same persons are accounted of by man and by God; and how little the Lord seeth as man seeth, in his estimate and choice of those whom he delights to favour. Who that had seen the forlorn son of Isaac in his journey over that desolate land, unsheltered, unattended, on foot, and struggling with fatigue and hunger, "a Syrian ready to perish" in the waste howling wilderness, would have guessed in this unhappy wanderer the founder of a mighty nation? who, that had known the circumstances of fraud and meanness which had compelled his flight, would have expected to find in the supplanter Jacob, an Israel, "the prince of God," to whose descendants, above all the earth, the knowledge of the true God should be entrusted; and from whose loins that Saviour was, in his mortal nature, to arise, in whom not the tribes of Israel alone, but all the nations of the world, were, in after-days, to be pronounced blessed? Yet thus it is that the wisdom of the wise is often put to shame; that God, even in the affairs of this world, should seem, on certain occasions, to delight in lowering the mighty and raising the humble on high; and that the riches of his grace are sometimes most abundantly shewn in calling sinners to repentance, and choosing out for great and glorious ends, the most contemptible and unworthy instruments. These things should make the proud man humble, and they should keep the humble man from despair. They should warn the first on how slender a thread his own power or eminence depends; and how little reason he has to think those beneath him, who, notwithstanding their present and outward inferiority, may be, in truth, of higher estimation in the eyes of God than himself, and designed by God to far greater usefulness here, and hereafter to far more exalted glory. The second may learn from them, that however insignificant he may feel himself in the eyes of men, however unable to render God worthy service, or to contribute in any perceivable degree to the amendment or happiness of his creatures, yet, if he perform with good will what little is in his power, that little may, by God's blessing, in its effects be infinitely multiplied; while, at all events, so far as he himself is concerned, the very least of his endeavours is not lost in the sight or memory of the Most High, nor will be forgotten in that day when the widow's mite and the believer's cup of water shall in no wise lose their reward, and when he "who has been faithful in a few things" shall, by the Judge of heaven and earth, be "made ruler over many things." Another observation, which we shall be naturally led to make in considering this passage of Scripture, is the constant reference and connexion which the promises of the Old Testament maintain with that great and glorious event, to bring us to which the New Testament itself is only, as it were, 66 a schoolmaster." To a wanderer like Jacob it would have been a promise sufficiently comfortable to have been assured by a heavenly vision of the protection of God in his journey, and of a safe and prosperous return to the land which he left against his will and constrainedly. It would have seemed an almost superfluous blessing to be told of the future greatness to which his descendants should be advanced, or to be reminded of the grant to the seed of Abraham of the land which he was now forsaking. But with neither of these points is the heavenly promise terminated:-not only is his family to become as numerous as the stars of heaven, but through one of their number all the nations of the earth are to be blessed; and for his seed is reserved the glory of reconciling God to man, and opening to penitent sinners the gates of a better paradise than that which Adam had forfeited. Nor need we wonder that this constant connexion should be found between worldly and spiritual privileges in the promises made by God to the family of Abraham. It had the effect of serving three very important purposes. In the first place, the prophecies of the Messiah were more listened to and better remembered by a gross and carnal people, from being thus, as it were, inseparably bound up and linked with promises of earthly power and greatness. Secondly, when the former part of the prophecy was fulfilled by the increased multitude and extended power of Jacob's descendants, those descendants were naturally inclined to pay greater attention to and place more trust in the remainder, of whose fulfilment in the course of time they had thus received, as it were, the earnest. And above all, amid whatever disappointments and adversities might in the present life befal them, the constant and recorded renewal of such promises, together with all the different manifestations of God's power and protection, would serve to remind the pious Israelites, that, however the possession of an earthly Canaan had failed to preserve them free from those calamities which are the common inheritance of mortals, there remained yet another and a better rest for the people of God, to which the Saviour, who was promised to arise from the seed of Abraham, when he came, should open the way. 66 Nor can we, on whom the ends of the world are come," whose lot is fallen to play our parts in the last great scene of nature, the concluding mystery of redemption, fail to perceive from this constant reference to the coming of Christ in the older records of God's providence, how noble and excellent are the privileges which we enjoy; how important in the eyes of God are those blessings, the knowledge of which is now opened to our gratitude; and how great a necessity is laid on us to employ, to the furtherance of God's glory and our own salvation, those lights which the patriarchs saw dimly and from far, those mysteries which so many prophets desired to understand, but desired in vain! Nor is this all. For, secondly, we may learn, from the union which I have noticed as universally observable in scripture between the promise of worldly blessings and the opportunity of heavenly graces, that the former of these are, in the eyes of the Allwise, only so far valuable as they are means of conducing to the latter; and that whatever wealth, whatever power, whatever personal or mental or worldly advantages, the Most High may in his wisdom extend to us, are not blessings in themselves, but as a way to greater blessedness, -as gifts by the use and improvement of which we are required by our God to serve the cause of his Son, and entitle ourselves, (if I may venture to use the expression,) entitle ourselves, through faith, to a more illustrious reward hereafter. If the Israelites were endowed beyond the nations of mankind, with wise and righteous laws, with a fertile and almost impregnable terri |